Pump.fun’s Dirty Secret: 98% of Tokens Flagged as Scams in Bombshell Report
Solidus Labs drops a grenade on the meme-coin carnival—turns out nearly every token on Pump.fun smells like a rug pull waiting to happen. Who could’ve guessed?
The ’innovation’ no one asked for
Another day, another blockchain ’platform’ proving that unregulated crypto markets will always attract more grifters than builders. The report exposes Pump.fun as the Vegas slot machine of DeFi—except the house always wins, and ’the house’ is a pseudonymous dev with a copy-pasted token contract.
Due diligence? Never heard of her
Retail ’degens’ keep pouring millions into these projects, because nothing says ’sound investment’ like a cartoon frog logo and promises of 1000x returns. Meanwhile, Solidus’ blockchain forensics team found the same wallet clusters dumping token after token—but hey, this time it’ll be different, right?
The only thing pumping here is the sewage line of crypto’s darkest impulses. Maybe save some of that gambling energy for the actual lottery—at least there you’d have SEC oversight.
Report Reveals Massive Scam Rate on Pump.fun
Solidus Labs, a company specializing in blockchain risk monitoring, released a detailed report on the state of certain platforms on the solana blockchain. According to the report, Pump.fun has issued over 7 million tokens since its launch in January 2024.
However, only 97,000 of these tokens have maintained a liquidity of at least $1,000, which is less than 1.4% of the total tokens.
More alarmingly, 98.6% of tokens issued on the platform have been identified as scams or show signs of fraudulent trading. One of the largest scams uncovered by Solidus Labs involved MToken, resulting in losses of up to $1.9 million.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently criticized platforms like Pump.fun and FTX for promoting speculation and harmful practices.
“good (in different ways): railgun, farcaster, polymarket, signal. bad (in different ways): pump.fun, Terra/Luna, FTX. The differences in what the app does stem from differences in beliefs in developers’ heads about what they are here to accomplish,” shared Buterin
93% of Liquidity Pools on Raydium Show Signs of “Soft Rug Pull”
Beyond Pump.fun, Solidus Labs found that 93% of the 361,000 liquidity pools on Raydium exhibit “soft rug pull characteristics.” This is a form of scam where developers gradually withdraw liquidity, causing losses for investors. Notably, Raydium also recently launched LaunchLab to compete with Pump.fun.
About 25% of these scams involved amounts less than $732. However, the median rug pull involved about $2,832, while the largest detected rug pull totaled $1.9 million.
Though the amounts look relatively small compared to multi-million-dollar scams, the sheer number of affected pools shows the prevalence of this issue.
A common thread between the two platforms is that both are built on the Solana blockchain. Solana is known for its high transaction speeds, processing thousands of transactions per second, and low costs, averaging just $0.00025 per transaction. Because of its technical advantages, Solana has become a prime target for criminals and scammers.
Moreover, Pump.fun, which allows anyone to create a token in minutes without rigorous vetting, has inadvertently become fertile ground for scams.
Despite these challenges, Solana remains a promising blockchain with many legitimate and interesting projects. Platforms like Raydium are vital in Solana’s DeFi ecosystem, with monthly trading volumes reaching billions of dollars.
